Silken Dagger
by Turquoisephoenix
Summary: Reading Veil of Darkness first is recommended Freya tells her partner about her past, and she reveals that she's not what she appears to be...


Silken Dagger  
  
As indicated in the last chapter of Veil of Darkness, I planned to make a story that told Freya's past and why she joined Morphina's army. After this one, I'll make Under the Moonlight, a past story about Donnia Starhunter and Rex Skyler if this one goes well. To make full sense of this, it's best to read Veil of Darkness first.  
  
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The morning sun shone brightly over the serene grasslands of the Menhir Hills. The morning dew glittered like diamonds on the grass and flowers of the peaceful area. The only sound in the peaceful grasslands was the distant chirping of songbirds. Peace was abound as five silent travelers made their way through the peaceful hills. Two were none other than Morphina's most hated traitors Freya and Bad-Rayman, who were on their second day of traveling after they left the Thorn household and the Marshes of Awakening. The other three travelers that followed were merely Freya's 'pets'; three zombie chickens still loyal to Freya even after she left Morphina's army.  
  
"Isn't this great?" Freya told her partner, who was resting on a gray rock and studying the surroundings for any signs of the nearest town, Freya's loyal zombie chickens resting behind him. They had stopped near a clear running river; something Freya hasn't seen for too long. "I'd thought that I'd never feel the morning dew between my toes again after those months in that smelly swamp!" She broke into a run and jumped into the river, sending a spray of wet mist into the air. Moments later, her head broke the surface of water. As she trended water, her passive friend shook his head in frustration. "Do you always have to act so spastic when we enter a new environment?" Bad-Rayman asked.  
  
"Unlike you, I need a change of environments once in a while." Freya exclaimed as she washed away the sweat and grime from her body in the river's clean rapids. "Besides, this clean water reminds me of when I was only a whelp." Her partner smirked at this comment. "How does a river remind you of your childhood? You told me that your good-for-nothing parents dumped you in the streets of Morva when you were just a baby because they didn't have enough money to take care you." He went back to studying the horizon for any signs of civilized life.  
  
"Oh. I must've lied to you then." Freya replied as she crawled back onto the sandy bank to dry off. "I never lived in Morva for an extended period of time. I spent my childhood on the mountain peaks surrounding this area. I was only in Morva because I needed a place to stay away from the slave drivers." At this time, Freya's snowy white fur was almost dry from the sun's rays. Her dark purple face-paint that trailed under her ears, which was used for magical uses glittered just like the morning dew that sat in clumps on the grass blades. Bad-Rayman seemed somewhat surprised that Freya mentioned slave drivers. She was a slave in her past life?  
  
"Since we have nothing better to do, why don't you elaborate on your past?" He suggested rather dryly. "It'll take a day or two before we find any civilization of the intelligent kind in this place, so we have to find something to do as we travel through these too-peaceful grasslands." Freya couldn't believe it; her partner actually wanted to know her past. Without a second thought, she cleared her voice.  
  
"Okay, where do I start...?"  
  
---------------------------------[Fifteen years ago]------------------------ ---------------  
  
Four year-old Freya woke up in complete darkness, and at first she believed that she had gone blind. She panicked, but her terror turned into anguish as she heard sounds of distant conversation. Frantically, she called out for help with wordless cries, but the formless voices didn't pay any heed to her. Memories began to dawn back on her as she lay in the cloaking darkness. The rock slide, the death of her friends and family, the two days of laying unconscious under a rock pile only to be discovered by raiders.  
  
How could they do this to her? She was only four years old and barely fluent in her culture's language! She cried again, only now her voice was tinged with hate and misery. This time, her call was answered with a swift kick to her cramped prison and a harsh insult. She didn't know the language they spoke in, being of an isolated tribe that spent generations in the mountains keeping to themselves, but she did know their ambition. She struggled to find elbowroom, but the small wooden box that was her prison prevented her from finding any. Whimpering, the pathetic creature curled into a ball of dirty tangled fluff and tried to go to sleep once more. Sadly, nothing could comfort her as she heard the raiders talk about their winning load and the new slave they found.  
  
Yes, slave. After an unexpected rockslide that took the whole side of the mountain crushed the village, Freya was the only one that wasn't swiftly killed under the weight of the falling rocks. For two days she lay unconscious, buried under the body of her mother that protected her for the final time. Fate had kept her alive, but it didn't keep her away from trouble. When the group of raiders arrived at the ruined scene that was once Freya's village, they didn't expect to find a female wolf child still breathing under a pile of rocks. She was brought to her senses with several swift kicks at her bruised side, causing the hurt creature to awaken at the pain of wounds not yet healed. At first, she believed the raiders to be rescuers that would take her into a new home. Boy, was she wrong. The leader of the group, a muscular human male with uncombed hair and hands covered with scars, didn't care for her feelings at all. As soon as she was brought to her senses, he ordered Freya to be bound and loaded into the traveling caravan that carried stolen goods like Freya's ocarina and her mother's pure silver hunting knife. Just like she was a bundle of firewood, two of the leader's cronies tossed her onto a pile of her tribe's stuff and left without a word to her.  
  
She shifted her right foot and had to bite her tongue to keep herself from crying out in pain. Thanks to her constant whining and whimpering during the trip, the leader of the raiders did something Freya considered unthinkable. He untied her from her bundled-up position and tied her to the back of the caravan. For several miles she walked without stopping down the sloping and rocky pathway that the caravan took. Her foot still hurt because a wheel broke off a shard of solid obsidian that hit her exposed foot like a knife and it caused her to yell out in pain. Wordlessly, someone walking near the rear of the wagon gagged Freya with her dead brother's bandana to make her shut up.  
  
For the night, she had to sleep in a wooden box with only the small air holes to comfort her. She knew that the raiders saw her as an extra mouth to feed, and not as a big profit. Steadily, the voices became dimmer before they finally died out as the raiders went to sleep. Freya waited until she was sure they were asleep before she began to weep for everything that had happened ever since the rockslide. She wept loudly until she felt that her lungs would burst. Why would they do this to a living animal? Didn't I have rights too? Freya's questions were the very things that lulled her to an uneasy and cramped sleep.  
  
~*~  
"Do you remember anything about your friends or family?" Bad-Rayman asked as he scaled a fish for their lunch with some cooking tools. Silver and turquoise scales landed into the grass like paper-thin shards of glittering glass. Freya's story took up a lot of time, but they had to interrupt it every now and then to travel a little farther so that they could reach the next civilization as soon as possible. They could finally get a paying job at a city, at least a paying job that accepted a wolf furry and a Rayman look-alike. To answer his question, Freya shook her head shamefully.  
  
"My memory before the rockslide is very foggy; I just can't remember much. Maybe it was because of the rockslide, or that I was just so young back when the raiders found me. All I remember is my Mom, my Dad, my brother, and the village elder. My Mom and Dad were the Chieftains, the great Terralances, while I was supposed to learn the powers of rune magic at a very young age. The village elder gave me the basics right before the landslide, but I was able to fill most of the knowledge void with personal training and study. My brother was named Wolfgang, and he was a little rough on me. I knew he just did it to keep face in front of his friends, but deep down he cared for me." Freya's friend seemed moved something that was rare to behold in his case.  
  
"I'm just curious; what does your family's language sound like?" He asked. Freya smiled slyly, and then replied in a different language. "Jresha la zayte, shanza knetu!" The confused look that she received from her traveling partners was priceless. "I said, 'Shadows grow as light gets brighter.' Sadly, I'm more fluent in good old English now." She sighed to herself in self-pity. "Why don't you continue?" Her partner asked to change the mood.  
  
~*~  
  
After three miserable days of sleeping in a box, being gagged and tied to the back of the wagon, and constant bruising, the caravan finally arrived in front of a large manor. Freya wordlessly gaped at the beautiful environment that surrounded the large mansion she was taken to. Well-tended trees, colorful flowers, and evenly cut grass were present in the garden that sat in front of the mansion. The mansion itself was made of marble, a rock that Freya knew nothing about. The raiders led the bound wolf up the wide steps towards the mansion, where a slave greeted them. Freya cringed as she studied the young slave's features. Unlike the mansion, the slave was scrawny and unkempt. The moment the slave laid eyes on Freya, he opened the mansion and let the raiders in without a word.  
  
It didn't take as long as Freya expected before she stood in front of the owner's feet. She didn't bother to give the mansion's many trinkets any notice as she was forced to walk into the owner's bedroom. He sat on a velvet chair made of the finest cowhide. His body radiated with the smell of money and perfume, and his hair was a golden blonde that reminded Freya of the rattlesnakes that lived near her village. He flashed a smile towards her direction, and his unusually shiny teeth lulled Freya into a false sense of security. "Lord Wyrm, we've brought you some supplies from a raided village that this horrible wrench was discovered." Freya flinched as the leader yelled at her like she was nothing more than a pack mule. She whimpered as Lord Wyrm examined her. Unlike the raiders, Lord Wyrm seemed like a gentleman. But, she knew that her assumption would be made in vain.  
  
Lord Wyrm handed the raiders' leader a large burlap sack of paper money. "There's two hundred extra for the slave, but the bonus was slightly lowered because of its condition." The leader grumbled underneath his breath, but he and the raiders left the room without another word. After the raiders were gone, Lord Wyrm looked over Freya like she was a piece of fine meat. "Tell me, young lady. What's your name?" Freya took two steps backward away from the stranger. After the bruises she took from the raiders, she didn't know what to expect from a lord. At her safe distance, she replied. "Freya, s-sir..." She didn't understand his language, but she could imitate the title the raiders gave him just fine. She gave out her name because she felt it was the best time to do so.  
  
Lord Wyrm took out an expensive cigar and lit it. He made a large puff of smoke that reminded Freya of the local dragons. "You don't have to imitate my dear. My other slaves will teach you English just fine." He made another puff of smoke towards Freya's direction. Freya let out an irritated cough as her lungs were filled with smelly tobacco. "Freya, is it? Such a beautiful name," he leaned closer to her so his eyes were at her level. He smiled at her, but his voice was iced with venom. "How good are you at doing work?"  
  
----------------------------[Six Years Later/Nine Years Ago]---------------- --------  
  
Freya, now ten years old, spent six years of her life in the Wyrm Manor. There, she learned to talk, write, and read in the English language rather quickly, thanks to the help from a pixie slave that worked in the library. Her childhood was filled with memories both welcoming and harsh, but they had faded over the tides of time. Her childhood friends were the other slaves that worked there, (Lord Wyrm never hired servants; he collected slaves from hired raiders.) and they taught her how to play games like Tic- Tack-Toe, Hide-and-Seek, and Blind Man's Bluff. Most of the slaves that Lord Wyrm kept were prisoners from war, children who had no family to go to, exotic creatures from dead villages (like Freya), or children that they're family avoided them like the plague because they had a vile disease or disorder (Lepers and lycanthropes fell into this category). Although she wasn't hurt as much as she expected to be as a slave, sometimes Lord Wyrm would pull out his trusty whip and lashed her until her back was soaked with her own blood for not doing something right. Sometimes, her own friends were forced to pin Freya down to keep her from running away from her lashings. Because of this abuse, Freya still had some sensitive pink scars trailing along her back that stung when touched.  
  
It was hard to remember any events from Lord Wyrm's manor because only two events still stuck out in her mind, her arrival and her escape. Her escape happened six years after her arrival to the manor as a slave, but it still was a lovely memory to Freya because it was when Freya tasted freedom once again after six years of hard labor. At first, she didn't believe her centurion friend when he exclaimed that he found a foolproof route out of the manor, but it didn't take long before most of the young slaves joined in on the centaur's plans.  
  
Freya remembered her body quiver with excitement as she dug through the soft dirt with her clawed hands. She couldn't believe that she was the one that would dig her friend's freedom route. The plan was to dig three feet underneath the flowerbed where the dirt was the softest and break out into sunlight again outside of the mansion's gates. The centaur (Freya couldn't recall his name, but it started with a K.) had dug the plans into the ground with a hooved foot. The plan was foolproof; they were doing this in the shelter of some bushes and some kids were distracting the adult slaves that didn't care for freedom. Every minute or two, the centaur would shout a command or direction to the excavators. It was the person leading behind's job to shout back the commands towards Freya the main digger. "We need to dig upwards! We're out of the fenced-off area!" A faun cried out from the rear. The two creatures behind her gave a whoop of glee, but Freya only concentrated on getting them out of this mole hole without causing a cave-in.  
  
"We're almost out of the manor, Freya! Keep digging!" The faun shouted. Freya could almost feel her friends' lust for clean air again, for the air in the tunnel was stale and moist. Her fur tangled in sweat and dirt, she quickened her digging pace. She knew that it would only take a few more inches before they broke the surface. Click! Her claws bounced harmlessly off the entrance's paved pathway.  
  
"Damnit! We've reached the main entrance's pathway! We have to go around!" Freya's swear echoed three times throughout her friends as they saw that their plan had a flaw. Quickly, the person leading the operation delivered a new set of orders. "He said that if you keeping digging to the left then you'll enter the surface the fastest way. However, you'll have to run about three yards to the main gate..." the rest of the main order was cut off by loud swearing and insults from the rest of the group. "Run three yards? We'll be discovered and pumped full of bullets!" "The main gate's closed! We can't just jump over it!" "How the hell did you get me into this mess in the first place?" The tunnel was filled with loud commotion, but the person leading the rear managed to stop the fuss by yelling another command from the person in charge. "Lord Wyrm discovered us! We need to get moving!"  
  
Freya became frantic in her digging, and she was pretty sure that she would cause a cave-in. Surprisingly, she broke the surface without causing the tunnel to collapse. The feeling of fresh air and sunlight on her sweat- soaked fur felt like heaven, but they weren't through yet. Freya quickly gathered her bearings; they had broke the surface near the main doors, and they had only a short run and a long jump to go before they were free. For once, she was glad that Lord Wyrm didn't live nearby any civilization so they didn't attract any outside interference. She twisted her body until she wrenched herself free from the ground. Dirty and sweaty, she looked downwards into the tunnel and called back to her companions.  
  
"I've broken the surface! We're almost ther-gurrrk!" A large meaty hand lifted her off the ground by the scruff of her furry neck. She swallowed the bile rising in her throat as she heard Lord Wyrm's smooth voice crawl down her back. "So, you've decided to try escaping again, you miserable wolf? Well, I won't let you do this again!" A chill went down her spine as the cold barrel of a shotgun was aimed at her back. "I should've done this the first time you attempted this, you little rat!" Now, usually a child of ten would freak out at the feeling of a gun at their back, but Freya was made of tougher stuff. She smiled coolly and swiftly kicked Lord Wyrm in the midsection, mule-style. The Lord dropped both her and the gun he was carrying with a yelp of pain. The shock of being dropped onto hard pavement stomach-first wore off quickly as Freya ran as fast as her paws could carry her. She didn't know that all of her friends were watching her fleeting escape with both awe and terror on the other side of the fence.  
  
"You flea-bitten pest! I'll riddle you so full of bullets that someone would get lead poisoning just by looking at your sorry carcass!" Lord Wyrm shouted as he picked up his gun and chased after Freya. Freya kept running, although her mind begged for her to make a snappy comeback. She ran a short ways until the main gate appeared in sight. The gate was tipped with rusty spikes, making it nearly impossible for a runaway slave to leap over them without getting something caught in the tips. However, none of the slaves Lord Wyrm received were from the high mountain peaks of Freya's home and none of them could climb up a nine-story manor in less than thirty seconds to fix a leaky roof. Before the Lord had a chance to fire, Freya cleared the fence with a single bound and landed to the other side.  
  
Loud cheers from her friends were the last things she heard of the manor until she ran well out of sight of it. That, and Lord Wyrm's obscene cursing that could be heard throughout the countryside. Soon, the only sound that accompanied Freya was the fast beating of her heart.  
  
~*~  
  
"You're lucky to have a childhood, Freya."  
Bad-Rayman poked idly at the churning river water with a piece of driftwood. It was the afternoon, and the group of travelers was resting after about two hours of walking and talking. Afternoon boredom soon got the better of them, creating an atmosphere of sluggishness. Despite the doldrums that had an affect on her partner, Freya was as peppy as ever. She was sitting in a bed of dandelions, laughing as she told her friend about the departure of Wyrm Manor. "Come on, you know you don't mean that. Six years as a slave is never glamorous."  
  
"True, but at least you weren't created with the purpose to destroy by a twisted warlock, tossed away like yesterday's newspaper after you lose once, enrolled as a Commander in Morphina's army with the same purpose to destroy, and slaying people who you had many a talk together over a pitcher of ale once you discover your true destiny with a red-haired girl, your old enemy, and a talking wart monster with one eye." Freya winced at his answer. Mr. Dark wasn't kind to failures at all. His hard life made him bitter, but now that he actually had a conscience his attitude softened over the days.  
  
"I know you had a rough life, but we can't dwell on the past like this. I'm telling you this because I feel that I could finally release my feelings to someone I can trust. Not like Pondscum..."  
  
"Pondscum? That loser was once a friend of yours?" Bad-Rayman tossed the piece of driftwood into the river. "No. He found me one day in the swamplands. The War of the Souls ordeal was not the first time I've stepped foot in the Marshes of Awakening." Subconsciously, she caught a gnat with both paws, squishing the annoying creature in the progress. The one thing she didn't enjoy about nature was that most bugs wanted a piece of you.  
  
"Okay. Might as well continue my little bedtime story..."  
  
~*~  
  
Seven years have passed since Freya escaped Wyrm Manor, making her the crisp age of seventeen. Ever since that day, she learned how to survive and fend for herself. As she journeyed through the lands, she kept herself alive by stealing food, clothes, and weapons in the light of the night stars. She would always sleep in the comfort of awkward places like barn lofts, tree tops, attics, and even in abandoned caves. She only was caught a few times, and every time she was caught stealing she would barely escape with her life. Sometimes when she was caught, she would be struck in the arm with a stray arrow or stone, causing scars to form to remind Freya of those close encounters. During her travels, she also focused to learn the rune magic that was all but forgotten during her stay at Wyrm Manor. Many times, she would raid a library and read large books that taught her chants to create runes that would destroy, heal, and summon. Life was hard, but at least she had her freedom.  
  
She had entered Morphina's army two years before the War of the Souls, and she happened upon the job by chance. She was visiting Morva, a dirty town that sat near the swamplands of the Marshes of Awakening, when the Fate made her a Commander. She was drinking a mug of cold ale as she sat at a grimy wooden table, listening to the people sitting next to her talk about monster sightings and the dangers in the world. She fingered her stolen dagger, a precious knife with a hilt of the softest leather, as she listened a man, who was clearly out of his mind, ramble about an interesting monster encounter he chanced upon.  
  
"I tells yas! Hes tee'h were dis lon'!" The man, who smelled heavily of alcohol and dirt, made a gesture that Freya didn't recognize. His partners, a green viper and a girl that wore mage's robes, both gave him disbelieving looks as they drank their beer. Freya pretended not to care as she listened to the guy ramble some more. "'E was drippin' 'with venom, 'e was! *Slurp* 'E was probably 'arding a 'reasure of sum sort." The female mage tossed her golden hair behind her back as she listened to her partner.  
  
"Are you talking about Jano? I heard he's not as dangerous as one would think..." The green viper banged his tail against the table like a fist. "Not dangeroussss? What did they put in yer beer? Of coursssse hesssss dangerousssss! I've heard he tearssss hissss victimssss apart like wet noodlessss!" At this point, Freya couldn't help but lean closer. The viper turned his narrow head and looked in Freya's direction, amber slitted eyes glowing with distrust. "What are you lookin' at, you mongrel? Go back to the sssstreetsss you came from an' let ussss finissssh in peasssse!" Freya pulled out her dagger in a solid movement of her right hand and pointed its sharp blade under the snake's chin. "Call me a mongrel again and I'll be wearing a snakeskin belt to go with my tunic!" Obviously, the ale didn't improve Freya's bad mood. At her sudden attack, a mage's staff and a long dagger was pointed at her chest. She cursed her stupidity as she sheathed her dagger under the watchful eye of three creatures that didn't trust her as far as they could throw her. As soon as she was excused from a bloody death, she picked up her empty glass and calmly walked towards the exit without bothering to pay the bill. After she was out of the exit, she threw the glass mug at the building's wall in frustration.  
  
As much as she hated it, the viper was right. She had no job, and had to steal to live. As she walked away from the slimy building, a voice came from a dusty alleyway. "I saw what happened in the boardinghouse, young lady." Freya turned to the direction of the voice, her dagger once again present under the moonlight. "And what are you going to do about it?"A frog as black as night materialized from the alley. He looked a lot like Globox, who was very well known at the time. "I saw you attack that viper in there. You have a lot of spunk, considering your age. And, it sounded like you were interested in Jano too." Freya shrugged at the stranger. "I was just listening and I thought that they could give me clues to get a job in Morva."  
  
The frog-like stranger shook with laughter. "Get a job in Morva? This place runs on dirt and alcohol! I'm sure Morphina could provide a better job for a lady like you!" Freya raised an eyebrow, but kept her dagger in sight. "Morphina? Is that some kind of industry?" "You never heard of Morphina? Geez, have you been leaving in a mountain?" Freya gave the frog a very peeved look. "Erm, well Morphina is my boss, if you could call it that. She provides a job in a way and she gives you your own home and food without any second thoughts. Judging from the act you pulled off today, you would fit right in as a Commander! Of course, if you change your mind after I bring you to Morphina, she'll have to spell-bind you..." Freya touched her runes protectively. "Spell-binding? I heard of her then. She's the demon that escaped the Cave of Bad Dreams eons ago!"  
"So she's a demon. So what? If you're a Commander, then at least you won't have to pick fights with the likes of them anymore." He jabbed a thumb to the direction of the boardinghouse, which had loud drunken whoops emitting from it now. Freya shuddered at the thought of dealing with another group of drunks. "Let's face it, you don't deserve to scourge these streets for food and shelter. You need someplace to call home, and maybe Morphina could provide that home for you. In fact, if you don't score well as a Commander, then I, the honorable Pondscum, will make sure that you won't get spellbound immediately. What do you say?" Pondscum held out a hand for Freya to shake. She glared at the peppy frog, but she soon gripped the slimy hand and shook it to seal the deal. "Fine..." Freya uttered. "At least being a Commander won't make me go hungry..."  
  
-----------------------------------------  
  
"Pondscum took me to where Morphina was currently staying, which was a sandy beach off the coast of Sanctuary of Water and Ice. He enrolled me into the army, and I was paired with well...you! I received three zombie chickens as my personal slaves, and two years later the whole War of the Souls ordeal happened." The sun was now turning a bright red-orange as it sunk into the West. "There, I told my story from the beginning to the end. Are you happy now that I revealed myself like an open book?"  
  
"Yeah, to be honest. Those tender pink scars on your back and shoulders couldn't have appeared while you were raiding a meat stand for food in Morva, like you previously told me when I brought the subject up before." They were now resting on a grassy hill that overlooked the rest of the grasslands of Menhir Hills. In the distance, they could spot the lights and smoke of civilization. "At least we chose to avoid Morva for sanity's sake. Bludreik is a lot better place to find a decent job." The sun was like a giant orange as it disappeared into the horizon, scattering bright colors across the sky. The day of traveling and talking had finished, and now they could rest with a clearer conscience.  
  
"Do you think that we'll ever turn back into the life of cutting throats of innocents? Do you think that we'll have to turn to a society like Morphina once again?" Freya replied as she watched the sun set. "I don't think so. We have no one to hide from, now that Morphina is dead, Mister Dark is gone, and Lord Wyrm isn't searching for a slave anymore. There's no point in hiding anymore. We can finally have a peaceful life." "Together?" Freya added on to her friend's answer in a excited sort of tone. He turned his head to her. There was a moment of silence before he nodded solemnly.  
  
"Yes. Together."  
  
--------------------------  
  
The End/ End/ Fin/ all that junk  
  
Well, what did you think? I intended this to not be a six-chapter story like Veil of Darkness, but a short (the first ever in TurquoisePhoenix history!) story that took only one chapter! Hooray for short stories!  
  
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As a bonus, here's a preveiw of 'Concealment of Evil'.  
  
The five heroes stared dumbstruck at the damaged land that was the beautiful lands of Menhir Hills. The ground was barren and scorched to a dark brown. The blackened remains of trees were twisted and broken in awkward angles, as if a giant hand had squeezed the very life from the branches. Ivy Thorn looked closer at the lands, and realized that the ground wasn't barren, but covered in the bodies of fallen soldiers that had died from the same thing that turned the grasslands into a wasteland. What could have done this? Immediately, Ivy and her four battle-ready friends ran down the slope to search for any clues of the cause of all this death.  
  
When the came closer to the battlefields, they saw that the ground was bubbling unnaturally like boiling water in certain spots. The air that hung above the death trap had an biting acid smell to it; the same smell that Ivy encountered when Morphina spat vemon at her during her final stand. "Demon spew...There were demons here, Ivy." Rex Skyler said seriously. Demons? Morphina was dead, right? Ivy shook away her thoughts as she examined a fallen tree. "I can see that, but the question is that what caused all of this..." She swept her hand towards the horizon, indicating the damage.  
  
"Hey! There's someone breathing over here!" The group heard Donnia cry in the midst of the damage. They all raced over to see her discovery, and nearly lost all hope when they saw what happened to Donnia's survivor. It was a man, covered with chain mail from head to toe to protect him from attacks. However, a large smoking hole in the middle of the man's chest indicated where he was mortally wounded. Blood bubbling unnaturally from the mix of demon venom poured out of the mortal wound. Donnia kept his head steady as the others lay the man on his side. "What happened here?" The man gasped, blood trickling from his mouth. "A snakebeast....we had thousands battling it...so many deaths...oh please let me die...." Donnia shook the man gently.  
  
"Tell us what this thing did to you!?! Please don't die now!" The man gasped, and then hoarsely replied to the group. "it sprayed vemon...killed everything in sight...I was hit in the chest and-" The warrior shuddered and lay still, his head becoming limp in Donnia's hand. Rex shook his head. "There's nothing we can do for him anymore. At least he told us what it was..." The group gazed out towards the horizon, surrounded by the wreck that was once a serene land full of peace. Everyone knew what it meant, what the man was telling them.  
  
Morphina has returned, and their stand against her may be their last...  
  
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See that little button on the bottom? Use it and review! Flames will not be accepted by me, and they are sure to leave a bad feeling in your conscience afterwards! 


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